Category: Music

S_V_H Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Summer Presto image3

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

summerPresto_3This is the Last Vivaldi of the Four Seasons series. This is a large artwork 240 inches in length.

The following video featuring the soloist, Mari Silje Samuelsenh, displays her violin talent and the electric connection the orchestra has with this Vivaldi masterpiece from the start. Than, from the 24th second to the 34th of this movement, you hear the music that is this painting.  In only 10 seconds,  that takes 20 feet to represent, the entire orchestra does a number of synchronized head movements that is visually stunning.  Than interestingly just before the one minute and twenty seconds, the serious concentration you see in Mari’s face suddenly changes,  she smiles, letting some unknown viewer share her exhilaration in this, one of the finest performances of  any music,  composed almost 300 years ago.  Amazing.

My challenge is to do some of my head bobbing and find the way to paint the emotions of this music into this artwork.

The green strips, you see on this work in progress, are pieces of removable tape I use as a guide and to create sharp edges for the painting of the this music’s shafts. You can see by looking at the flow of the music going up the scale why everyone shakes their heads.  That up and down is a natural movement with the music.

I would like to mention that you are seeing a small directional change in style. If you compare the middle stripping from the first image of this work, with the second image, you will see that I have done something different from earlier works.

This close up of image one is how I have portrayed stripping in the past: using multiple layers of colors spread all within a single strip:

SummerPresto3CNow, with this second image you see I have added, using different colors, brush strokes in a cross hatching method, that covers multiple strips. This helps to create a less stagnate and more interesting image, without losing the structure of the artwork. This is a small part of that head shaking I need to represent.

SummerPresto3D

Finally, a little reflection:  I have looked at a lot of music representations in art and the best of these works are pure abstractions. Although at first that might be thought of as the logical method to display sound,  I do not see it that way. I do not paint music as an abstract. Instead I show the structure and organization of music, while always remembering that a piece of music is never played the same twice. This artwork strives to represent the spontaneity, and diversity of music, and not the cookie cutter images you see in sheet music. This art flows with the music, but is never meant to be precise. This art displays, in tribute, the beauty and wonder of a single musical piece.

Scott Von Holzen

 

S_V_H A Great Big Sled Christmas 2014 final image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen2 Comments

aGreatBigSledFinal

A Great Big Sled Final Image. Here is another version of this wonderful Christmas song with a modern edge to it. When you hear those bells, you are listening to this artwork.

This finished  artwork uses six canvas panels with a finished length of sixty inches. Any picture of this artwork will never compare with seeing it in person. No image I can produce captures the look of the gold and silver paint that dominates this work. This resulted in a long struggle to produce a decent canvas image for this years Christmas cards.  Finally, under the press of mailing dates, and the conclusion that I could not produce a match of the work, I did my best to print something. This years Christmas card printing is largest ever with thirty copies.

Looking at the overall finished artwork I like the look of the candy cane stems. They were a lot of work,  not tedious, but time-consuming.  I especially like the look of those long blue objects that are my version of musical Rests. I painted over a dozen Rests, each different from the last, in the last Vivaldi. You can see that look being carried over in this artwork. What I am seeing in my Rests, is a good solution in design that has quickly become a mature style. The Rests will certainly evolve over time, but not out of need or necessity.

My symbols for the bell sounds, surrounded by extra circles, are nothing special, but they work, filling space while adding interest, and the opportunity to add extra canvases to make the look of this artwork, unique. My musical vine looking Slurs, you see all across the top of the canvases, and repeated in a red color in the music, give a Christmas look to the work, and fill space while pushing the music across the canvas. My red and green rectangles I like for their sharp edges counter the rounded forms of the slurs and the other rounded objects in the music. My choice of words where the best option, that balance well, and flow nicely across the painting. Still, If I would have had another choice I would have left out the word ‘me.’  I like words to connect personally to the viewer,  leaving me out of the picture, but this did not work.

As this art has taught me over the years, I have come to respect the limitations when producing each painting.  Each of these finished artworks are a display of an abstract idea that is music, and the price of admission that allows me to paint another. I always hope that my next artwork will somehow solve the disappointments with the last painting, but I know that Music is a vastly diverse language, so that challenge is great.  I have to constantly look at my art and question how I paint, and if I can find another, better way, to visualize sound that a viewer can relate to.  This makes everything complicated because for this art to evolve artistically, I have to keep an open mind, with all of its options, no matter the direction this may turn me.  It is that search to find new ways to apply the colors of acrylic paint to pieces of canvas, that will forever remain the goal. This years Christmas painting breaks no new ground, solves no problems, and answers nothing. That is what I expect from the last artwork of the year. Instead, in all of its non answer glory,  It is a summary of this art’s 2014 style that leaves open another opportunity for improvement. On to 2015 where the best artwork is yet to be built.

Scott Von Holzen

 

 

 

 

S_V_H A Great Big Sled Christmas 2014 image2

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

bigSled_2

This is a late 2nd image of A Great Big Sled this years Christmas painting.  Looking at the image you can see that most of the major items are in place.  For those parts that I need to paint in I have some basic ideas of what I am going to do.  With my version of 8th notes I am looking to fill space and add interest. By using a long curve shape this will animate the music across the canvas, which is similar to many of my artworks, where I create sails out of my notes.  When I create a musical artwork a static look is not excusable.  Maybe that is why a lot of art based on musical themes are abstractions.

My words ‘me in the sled,’ say something different from the music, which is what I always try to do in my word choices. My words intentionally go in a different direction from the music. The viewer hopefully seems them as a curiosity.  They are a part of an artwork, that starts out as a tribute to a song,  and ends as something more out of something else, that maybe on its own appears to be rather mundane or boring.

It is interesting that the  music that I portray, ends up being little influenced by the real music I am portraying.  It is like I am using music as an excuse to paint an artwork.

My love of music makes my love of art real, and not a reproduction in a book.

Scott Von Holzen